i have everything the world could give a girl to make her happy but, every once in awhile, without meaning to, i get jealous. i get jealous of people with children, people with lovers, people without dead parents, people with actual self-esteem. and i can usually pray my way out, before i become too crazy. but when i can't - when all my coping mechanisms fail - i go back to this poem and, while it's not optimistic, it's brutally honest about this crazy, jealous condition...
September
By Jennifer Michael Hecht
Tonight there must be people who are getting what they want.
I let my oars fall into the water.
Good for them. Good for them, getting what they want.
The night is so still that I forget to breathe.
The dark air is getting colder. Birds are leaving.
Tonight there are people getting just what they need.
The air is so still that it seems to stop my heart.
I remember you in a black and white photograph
taken this time of some year. You were leaning against
a half-shed tree, standing in the leaves the tree had lost.
When I finally exhale it takes forever to be over.
Tonight, there are people who are so happy,
that they have forgotten to worry about tomorrow.
Somewhere, people have entirely forgotten about tomorrow.
My hand trails in the water.
I should not have dropped those oars. Such a soft wind.
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